Do I need any special expertise or tools to analyze the data in the Microdata Library?

The Microdata Library makes all the metadata, supporting documents and reports available in common formats such as Microsoft Word or PDF. These are easily accessible to all users.

The datasets themselves are in many cases the product of probability samples and may have complex sample designs that require some training to analyze correctly. These types of data are often used by researchers and policy makers who are trained in the use of these data and who have access to software specifically designed for survey data analysis. Examples of such software are STATA, SPSS, SAS and the open source statistical package R.